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Page One – Temperate Forests – Flora and Fauna –
Forests That Consist of a Single Intertwined Organism – Characters Pronounced
From The Future Tense - Transpiration Explained
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2 And Nephites did cleave unto the ways of Lamanites,
even unto those who had been cursed with blackness, for their transgressions
against the LORD.
3 And all of this was moreover witnessed by the
LORD, who perceives every thing that is under the sun, and it angered Him
greatly.
4 So that He did smite the Nephites with a great
plague, and refrained from bringing rain upon the land for many seasons.
5 And the land was made barren, and the prophets
among the Nephites began to prophesy as to still greater punishments, and still
greater scourges, for the Nephites had become a fallen people.
6 Thereupon some spoke of CHRIST JESUS, and how he
would return on a latter day, and on that day there would be a final reckoning,
the like of which had not yet been seen upon the whole earth.
7 For these prophets were indeed given the spirit of
the LORD, and they had been given to see the doings of future ages, and the
wars to come, and the snares that awaited the faithful.
8 “Hearken unto me,” said one of these prophets,
indeed said the mightiest among them all, “For my name is known to you. And I have also seen the golden plates, and
have witnessed the descent of Moroni from the heavens, and have cast the ways
of the Lamanites from both my home and my sight.
9 “For I wear the armor of GOD beneath my clothes,
and I have put aside all uncleaness.”
10 “And I have seen those things that are to come,
even the passing away of these Lamanites, and yet still these Nephites, save
one, and even the great monuments that men have built unto the glory of the
LORD.
11 “And I call upon you to observe, that one day
this land shall fall silent, and these lands that we now war over will not
remember our names, nor our faith.
12 “That the land will be one people, cursed with
darkness, and our sons and grandsons will likewise be dark, and brutal, and
they will raise up from their midst strange gods, and transgress greatly.
13”Until a chosen day, when men will again come from
the other side of the great waters that lie east of here, and these men will be
as our fathers’ fathers, white and pure before the LORD, and they will look
upon our sons and grandsons as the lion looks upon the insect, for so much
greater and holier will these men be than our own sons and grandsons.
14 “And to one of these men will be revealed the
true word of GOD, even upon plates of gold, and he will take to himself many
wives, and his people will found a new Zion, in the midst of the waste-lands.”
15 So said the prophet, whose name was known to the
faithful.
16 But many whispered against this man, and the
Nephites continued in their evil, so that the LORD was angered continually.
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Thirty-Six – Subtropical Agriculture – Himself (or Herself) - Characteristics
of Nutrient-Poor Soils – Cocoa Farming in West Africa – Economics vs.
Environmental Concerns
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If I were some kind of merlin or wizard, some kind
of quetzalcoatl, hinted at in sculpture.
If I were some legendary figure, like Gilgamesh or Hercules. If I was something more than I was and more
than I am. But I never will be. Somewhere inside myself I know this, though
my ego refuses to believe it. If I were
even less than mythical. If I was a
Caesar, or an Alexander, or a Ramses. If
I were something slightly infamous, that would be OK too. If I were a Napoleon or a Truman. If I were someone whose name we have to
remember. If I were part of the
recitation, part of the chant.
That
would be enough. The life of the living
is not to be lived by me. I would rather
live the life of the previously alive.
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Page Fifty-Four – Desertification – Common Features
of Animals Adapted to Arid Climates – Different Types of Deserts – The Namib
and its Peoples
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666 Where one God is divided from Himself, this is
where I am. The Evening Star unto a
Morning Star, the night as to the day.
This is where I am.
665 To draw bounds upon the eternal, to place limits
upon the unforeseeable, to cast a shadow over eternity, this is what they do
when they turn their backs upon me.
664 Yet in their blindness they will not see me as I
draw forth my tempered sword, and cleave in two the oneness that they seek.
663 For as God was, so am I. As God forever is, as am I also. Were God indeed to claim empire over one
plane, or two, or four, there also am I.
I do not need to lurk within any god’s shadow, for the God in his
oneness has but a single eye, where I have two.
662 Even as they praise Him, they do not see His
familiar. Even as they draw His likeness
into the margins of their imaginations, there I reside also. For they have a thing they like to call Evil,
and I am to be found within it.
661 And yet there are even those who speak of three
inside of one, or four inside of eight, or ten inside of all. And in their numbers and in their days they
show that they are fools, for their abstractions only serve to magnify all
these untold numbers and days that I am.
660 I would that you were witnesses at the moment of
creation, for I have seen, and I alone remain to tell the tale. He will not tell it.
659 Father of Lies I may be, but in silence lays the
truer curse. I would have it that you
know at least half the truth, for in one half lies the other.
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Page Seventy-Four – Equatorial Wildlife and the
Quest for Oil – A Village in Goa – Endangered Species and Chinese Intervention
– The Plight of Coral – Quantum Interference – Electrons That Smash Backward
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If I were but a man, that I might die upon the
cross. If I were but a poor sinner,
destined to transgress. I think that I
might like that. When you are everything
you are really nothing, and when you are forever you have yet to begin. People speak of me in contradictions, and I
wish that it were not so. I am not a
cruel God, am I, neither am I fair or wise or just. I just am, and I wish that I were less, so
that I could be more.
If I
were her in the park, holding that hapless man’s hand. Her manner shy yet eager, wet between the
legs and wanting his arms around her. If
I were her lips as she kissed him, and as he placed his fingers down to touch
her inflamed desire. That, I think,
would be a good thing, for in my longing I would taste the eternity that I am
supposed to represent. I would lose
myself. I would be forever as I have
forever wished to be.
If I
were him in the restaurant. Frying cuts
of breaded pork, removing them from the oil, and placing them next to the rice. If I were him, and I had loaned you money
last week, or I had given you a plate of curry for free. That, I think, would be immortality. My name would be forgotten, yes, but what I
had done and will have done will echo through everything that men have done,
and that men will do. My actions would
be as large as life. Larger than any
dead living thing might be.
If I
were that cat there, sleeping on the couch in the room where you type
this. I could sleep contented, knowing
that someone loved me, knowing that the sun shone through the window, knowing
that the world moved without my willing it so.
But I
must stop here. My thoughts are spilling
outside the words. My agony outstretches
each sentence. There are no paragraphs
in which to frame my isolation, or pages in which to list the distances I
travel.
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Ninety-Nine – Arctic Environments – The Polar Bear: Doomed to Extinction? –
Viewing Religious Debates on a Miniscule Scale - Conservation Efforts – Native
Peoples and Foreign Interests – Rising Sea Levels
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